You are at the networking event. You run into someone you know. They ask how it’s going.

You smile. You say you’re great.

A day ago you were one step away from sending it all to hell and quitting.

How often has that happened to you? I’d bet more than once. I know this not because of the stats, but because you tell me. I have been fortunate enough to be open on my social media and in this newsletter about what I’m going through as a founder, and the replies I get back say the quiet part out loud every single week. The founders who look most composed on LinkedIn are often the ones messaging me at midnight asking how I keep going.

Last week I found myself doing an online quiz on bipolar disorder, because it was the only way I could explain the ups and downs of the last few weeks since I got back to fundraising full time.

Fundraising is a full-time job. Running the business is also a full-time job. The level of automation doesn’t matter - it’s more than any of us can handle, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.

No wonder my ankle gave out two weeks ago. And again yesterday. Everything around me is screaming slow down. But I can’t. Or can I?

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Many of you reading this are thinking - quit your whining, we are all in the same boat. And you’re right. That is exactly the reason so many of us feel guilty for taking a break, for admitting the full picture, for saying anything that doesn’t sound like we’re winning. If everyone else is suffering in silence, admitting out loud that you’re suffering too feels like weakness, or worse, like a complaint nobody asked for.

Last night I woke up at 3am worried about our product roadmap and the launch date. Instead of trying to get back to sleep I stayed on my phone working until 8am. Two hours later I twisted the same ankle for the second time. The body keeps the score, as the book goes. Mine was keeping it very publicly.

I don’t speak up about this stuff because I don’t want to sound negative. I also know what public perception costs you as a founder - with investors, with potential hires, with the people in your own community who might start wondering if you’ve lost the plot.

So I bottle it up, I smile, and I tell everyone I’m fine.

And honestly, I am fine. These setbacks are a normal part of the founder journey. Tomorrow I’ll wake up full of energy and a positive outlook on the road ahead. Both things are true at the same time. That’s the part nobody talks about.

I don’t love quoting stats in these pieces, but these ones matter.

87% of founders report experiencing anxiety, depression, or burnout. In a UCSF study, entrepreneurs were 50% more likely than the general population to report a mental health condition. The most common ones in that study were depression (30%), ADHD (29%), anxiety (27%), and - notably - bipolar disorder (11%). So that quiz I was doing at 2am wasn’t as random as it felt. One in nine of us is actually dealing with the thing I was quietly worried I had.

The one that stops me, though, is this. 68% of founders are actively concealing their mental health struggles from investors, boards, and stakeholders. 77% avoid professional support even when they’re clearly in it. Fewer than one in five know that founder-specific mental health resources even exist.

That is thousands of people, at any one time, standing at a networking event, smiling, saying they’re great. Then going home, lying in bed, taking a bipolar quiz at 2am.

Earlier this week I watched a reel that’s been doing the rounds. The core message: being pessimistic literally kills you. Optimism boosts dopamine, enhances your immune system, extends your life. Please, for the love of all that is holy, be optimistic. Do not be your own hater.

It is nicely delivered. The science it quotes isn’t wrong. And at 3am, when you’re already lying awake worried about your roadmap, it is one of the most unhelpful things you can watch.

Because the implicit message - the one buried under the dopamine and the immune system and the live-longer line - is that if you’re not optimistic, you are doing it wrong. You are shortening your own life. You are becoming your own hater. You are a founder with a bad attitude, which is the one thing a founder is never allowed to have.

That framing has a name in psychology. It’s called toxic positivity, and the research on it is as consistent as the research on burnout. Suppressing negative emotions doesn’t make them go away. It makes them stronger, keeps your stress response switched on, and over time leads to higher anxiety, more depression, and worse physical health - the exact outcomes the “stay positive” content claims to prevent.

Barbara Fredrickson, whose work founded a lot of modern positive psychology, is explicit about this. A life without any negative emotion isn’t just impossible - it’s undesirable. Negative emotions exist for a reason. They tell you something is wrong, they sharpen your thinking, they stop you walking into the next bad decision. Research by Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales found that mild negative moods actually improve memory accuracy, reduce gullibility, and sharpen analytical thinking. Taping over them with “good vibes only” is like disabling the warning lights on your car dashboard so you can enjoy the drive. The lights were trying to help.

I’m not saying the optimistic reel is wrong. Optimism is a real force. I’m saying the full picture is harder and more honest than the version that fits in 55 seconds, and the version that fits in 55 seconds is the one most founders are quietly measuring themselves against.

Last night I was at an event hosted by someone else in our community. I spoke to a few founders who had been through almost exactly the week I’d just had. They were open about it with me, because they’d seen me being open online. With anyone else, they would have said “I’m fine.” I get it. I do the same.

That’s why finding your tribe matters more than almost anything else in this job. A small group of people who have been in the same room you’re in now, who don’t need you to perform, who can hear “I nearly sent it all to hell last Tuesday” without flinching, and who can also hear “and I’m fine, and tomorrow I’ll be flying” without thinking you’re unstable. Both things are true at the same time. Both are part of the same job. The founders who last are the ones who have found three or four people they can say both things to in the same conversation.

If you’re reading this at 3am, worried about your roadmap, feeling like you have to post one more positive update before you can let yourself sleep - this is me telling you that you don’t. You can be exhausted and still love what you’re building. You can want to quit and still be the right person to do the job. You can smile at the networking event and have had the worst week of your year. None of those things cancel each other out. They are the job.

The smile is real. The tears are real. If anyone tries to tell you to pick one, they haven’t done the job.

✅ Know a founder who has been smiling a little too hard at events this month? Forward this their way. The tribe starts with one person admitting it first.

(👉 Vote now - we’ll share the results in next week’s issue. All votes are anonymous.)

(Last week’s poll results)

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